Glaxo CEO of Glaxo Leader Behavior Sir

Glaxo

CEO of Glaxo

Leader Behavior

Sir Andrew Witty is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) whose role is stated as to lead and manage the business and Sir Andrew became CEO on 21 May 2008 (GSK, N.d.). The company, and the industry in general, face a lot of negative publicity and sentiment from the public. At Glaxo they have tried to counter such claims by being more collaborative with different causes. For example, intellectual property is a critical success factor to solving many of the world's most pressing issues. As Sir Andrew stated "I think probably the most important areas we tackled were the opening up of intellectual property; so by being the first company to be prepared to put all of our intellectual property in the field of neglected tropical diseases in to the patent pool, that was really a seminal moment in the company and I would argue the history of the industry, in terms of acknowledging that you can have different approaches to intellectual property to solve different problems (GSK, 2012)."

The leadership style of Sir Witty seems to be that of a supportive leader who is amicable and open. There is also a transformational aspect to Witty's leadership style that was chosen intentionally because of the company's previous history. Witty's appointment to the top job in May 2008 marked a change in direction. GSK was facing expiry on the 20-year patents of a selection of blockbuster medicines, while governments on both sides of the Atlantic were balking at ever more expensive drugs (Clark, 2011).